


Thicker Than Water

by YumeArashi



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, I obviously know nothing about military anything, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers, prisoners of war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 16:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18663829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YumeArashi/pseuds/YumeArashi
Summary: Klaus soon learns that these soldiers all have something in common.  They were prisoners of war.  Escaped or rescued or thrown away for dead, they have all lived through capture and torture by the enemy.  They are survivors.They know he is one of them.





	Thicker Than Water

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this tumblr post https://thesevenumbrellas.tumblr.com/post/184553800267/what-if-the-soldiers-actually-noticed-klaus-was

The first night when they make camp, Klaus sees how the handsome soldier - Dave, his name was Dave - watches him strip and sponge himself clean, his eyes going not to the obvious attractions but to the wounds and bruises and too-prominent bones.  Klaus waits for the inevitable questions, already spinning a lie on the tip of his tongue. But the questions don't come.

The next day, Dave takes him around and introduces him to a few of the guys.  Klaus can't help but notice that he's introduced to the unfriendliest of the lot, and he wonders if this is a practical joke, hazing the new guy.  He soon learns, however, that these soldiers all have something in common.

They were prisoners of war.  Escaped or rescued or thrown away for dead, they have all lived through capture and torture by the enemy.  

They are survivors.

They know he is one of them.  They see his injuries and his twitchiness, hear his nightmares and his falsely bright laughter.  Bit by bit, they overcome their own wariness and open up to him. And in turn, he finds that he can open up to them.  Oh, he has to blur the details a bit when he talks about it, of course - but he _can_ talk about it.  He can talk about the fear and pain and certainty of impending death, the hysteria of being trapped, the withdrawals worse than the torture.  He can give voice, slowly and painfully, to the crushing conviction that no one had noticed or cared that he'd been taken and no one was coming to save him.  He can lay bare the shame of knowing that in the end he broke, the weight of knowing that his freedom had almost surely cost his rescuer their life, the desperate hope that his weakness hadn’t cost his brother the same, the guilt of fleeing to save his own skin without doing a single thing to help either of them.  

They don’t judge him, the former prisoners of war.  Each of them has their own shame and guilt and grief, their scars both visible and invisible.  They understand, these wounded men, haunted by ghosts only slightly less literal than Klaus’. They reassure him with words or with silent company that he is not forsaken, that he does not suffer alone.  They support him, and each other. They listen, they comfort, they take turns waking one another from nightmares. Klaus learns that too - how to listen instead of speak, when to offer kindly reassurance and when to commiserate angrily, where a comforting lie is better than a painful truth and vice versa, how to support others and in turn trust in the support that is offered to him.  He learns to hope that one day they can heal.

They are more truly his brothers than the four he grew up with.

(One day, in the shadow of an averted apocalypse, that will slowly change, but Klaus doesn't know it then.)

Five months in, two of the men in the unit are captured, and their commander tell them it's too risky to raid the camp where they'd been taken.  Klaus stands and looks him in the eye, tells him that he's been in the hands of the enemy knowing that no one was coming for him, and he won't stand for it, even if it means going after them alone.

A hand rests on his shoulder, and he turns to see the other POWs standing with him.

"Not alone."


End file.
